The first game in the second trilogy of the Halo sci-fi series has the Master Chief awakening from cryostasis (four years after the events of the previous trilogy) as he explores the mysterious Forerunner shield world Requiem, fights a newly-formed Covenant group, and accidentally awakens an ancient evil.

Weird "Story Issue" *Spoilers*

Does the scope of Earth and the UNSC seem anemic to anyone else? Let me list my issues with the story parts of the game and then we can discuss as maybe I missed something.

1. Master Chief being found alive and well, along with Cortana, doesn't feel like a big deal. In my opinion, it feels like business as usual. The Spartans were always listed as MIA for morale, but I figured 4 years after the Covenant war was over and that they are use voluntary Spartan-IVs (which makes me wonder if the ODSTs still exist) that the whole propaganda of Spartans was done with. Everything just felt very "oh you're alive. cool." opposed to "holy shit, Master Chief is still alive? Awesome!"

2. was anyone else weirded out that only 1 UNSC fleet ship was in the battle against the Didact and composer at the end of the game? I figured with it taking place that close to earth, the majority of the fleet would be there as well. Based on the way the battle plays out and the way the dialogue is given, the Infinity feels like the only major ship in the fleet. I'm not sure if 343i just didn't have "time" to worry about adding other stuff or what, but the scope felt incredibly anemic compared to something like even Reach did.

3. wasn't the composer supposed to turn humans into the Didacts army or something? Did I miss something there or just misinterpret it?

Yeah, they whole not being impressed that Master Chief somehow managed to survive four years in a busted ass ship floating through space seemed really odd. Also, I believe the radio chatter you hear in the last level references multiple ships in the defense of Earth, I think they were called Battle Group Dakota or something, I can't remember.

The whole giant-ass Forerunner ship showing up to Earth thing felt really weird considering exactly that fact, that basically no one seemed to notice. That said, however, we didn't really see much of what was happening outside the ship, as we were too busy being in the ship, so perhaps there was a shit ton of UNSC ships out there fighting. If that's the case, however, that should've been conveyed to the player better. It's not a huge problem, in fact it's not much of a problem at all, but it definitely strikes me as weird.

The Master Chief thing is less weird to me because consider this. By the time the Infinity crew meets up with John, they are already fully aware he is alive. They've gotten the distress signal, contact was made, so they had plenty of time to go "holy shit, the Master Chief is still alive!" to themselves. Perhaps more pomp was in order for the return of an in-universe legend, but there were kind of bigger fish to fry, like being on a giant Forerunner vacuum planet.

Possibly. I'd like to see a division between the new Spartan IVs and any remaining Spartan IIs. There theoretically could be a handful of IIs left over and maybe even some Spartan IIIs. Might be interesting to see the UNSC try and turn on Chief. I have a feeling the sequel will involve him getting paired with a new Cortana and there being some sort of conflict there as well. Maybe Halsey trying to secretly do new Spartan programs like the Spartan II stuff. We already know she shows disdain for any Spartan that wasn't a II.

1 - I would imagine the lack of everyone getting in line to go down on the Chief is probably do to the fact that the vast majority of people he encounters until near the end are Spartan IVs, the dickhead Captain of the Infinity who obviously does not like the Master Chief, and Lasky who has immense respect for him and wouldn't lose his shit like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert. The Spartan IVs are probably of the mind they are the "new thing" and Chief isn't that special.

2 - There are several UNSC ships engaged with Didact's forerunner ship. If you look up in the sky box during the take out the defense cannons section there a bunch of ships in the battle.

3 - The Composer converts organics into digital constructs, this apparently burns them out. It didn't work and the digital versions of those converted went insane and fragmented. The forerunners scrapped the project. Didact used the digital constructs of the original humans to create the Promethean army.

@RAMBO604: I just replayed level 8 last night and didn't see any other ships up in the sky.

Hmm, strange I remembered seeing the Infinity with at least two smaller ships floating about. And what made that stick was I thought it was odd that there were ships not doing anything not lack of ships.

Either way that section is weird though. Then again Earth's orbital defenses got annihilated by the covenant in 2 and during the beginning of that game Johnson makes mention that the project for that began when he enlisted and was just recently finished so maybe they havn't had enough time to rebuild. Plus I think its mentioned at some point that by Halo 4 humanity is spread thin after defeating the covenant. All possible story explanations. Or just all the ships were attack the other side of Didacts ship. Who knows. That is such a minor moment in that level though.

Do we have any idea if there are ODSTs any longer? I always found them more interesting compared to Spartans, but after the new Spartan IV program I can't seem to wonder if there is a point to having ODSTs any longer.